It’s here. Go there to to see what the specific, for-real 2173% tax increase is.

The column will go up Friday morning here at BizzyBlog (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

One of early commenters at PJM said this in part about the significance of the various tobacco-related tax increases:

“Not one thin dime.” Isn’t that what the Pres said about raising taxes on 95% of Americans? I don’t make anywhere near $250k and somehow, unexplainably, I feel like I’m paying more taxes… Hmm. This is very disturbing. A carton of smokes (not even the premium ones) went from $28 to $34 the other day. I wonder if I could save up all the packs I smoke in a year, send them to the gubmint and get a tax refund or something. Just to keep Obama from lying to me, you know.

I will — listen now — I will cut taxes — cut taxes — for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.

“Listen now,” because Obama’s direct promise has been proven, like Bill Clinton’s infamous disappearing middle-class tax cut in 1993 (which instead turned into a massive tax increase that held the economy back from what it could have been for the next several years), to be a direct betrayal:

First and most obvious, even without the points that follow, the tobacco-related tax increases ARE taxes (Obama didn’t say “income taxes,” did he?). Obama’s sentences-earlier reference in his speech to the “tax code” doesn’t get him off the hook, because tobacco taxes are part of the Internal Revenue Code. Tobacco-related taxes also, as the column points out, disproportionately affect those with middle and lower incomes.

Second, Obama and his fellow POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy architects have, from all indications, thrown permanent middle-class “tax cuts” under the bus. The New York Times reported on March 25 that “[neither] the House [nor] Senate [budget] plans … would extend a middle-class tax cut championed by Mr. Obama beyond 2010 unless a source of revenue to pay for it is identified.” That’s Times-speak for “it looks like they’re only going to last a year, and then it’s bye-bye.”

Many of the “tax cuts” should be characterized as “giveaways” anyway, because in a large plurality of cases they will represent amounts paid to households who are paying no federal income tax in the first place.

This nonchalant betrayal partially explains why Tea Parties across the nation, far from being elitist, are attracting Americans from all walks of life.

____________________________________________________

RELATED: Today’s column at Townhall by Walter Williams gets to material I had to leave on the cutting-room floor in the interest of space (paragraph breaks added by me; bold is mine) –

Most Americans accept the continuing attack on tobacco companies and smokers, but how do they feel about the massive government deception?

In 1998, 46 state attorneys general and major tobacco companies signed the Master Settlement Agreement. The major tobacco companies agreed, among other things, to give states $240 billion over 25 years to provide for smoking cessation programs and cover the health costs associated with using their product. In return state attorneys general promised tobacco companies that they wouldn’t sue them and would use their lawmaking power to protect the major tobacco companies from competition from small tobacco companies.

Of the $80 billion extorted so far, states have spent about 30 percent on health, not all tobacco-related, and less than 6 percent on smoking cessation programs. Instead, state legislatures spent the bulk of their tobacco money for items such as museum building, tax relief, rainy-day funds and other expenditures having nothing to do with tobacco or health.

In case you haven’t gone to the PJM column to see what the 2173% tax increase is — when you do, you’ll find that it has to do with “protect(ing) the major tobacco companies.”

How a Sunriver man saved a dear friend with CPR
Published: April 06, 2009 4:00AM PST

For Dave Lewis, March 12 started out like any other day.

The Sunriver man went to his job as a mortgage consultant at Bank of Oregon, and headed home a little early to get in some quality time outdoors with his boxers, Sophie, 2, and Bailey, 10.

Lewis and his dogs have a favorite trail, which runs from the northern edge of Sunriver toward Benham Falls.

“We try to get out where nobody’s around,” he said in a telephone interview last week. “It was a gorgeous day down by the river.”

The trip out from the car takes 30 to 45 minutes, Lewis said, and Sophie “runs circles around (Bailey), and he, of course, tries to keep up.”

On this particular day, the group had just started to head back toward home when Sophie ran by her owner, and Lewis noticed Bailey was nowhere to be seen.

“I turned around and he was just stretched out in the snow about 25 or 30 yards behind me, just flat on the ground,” he said. “I didn’t know whether (Sophie) had run into him or not, because she’ll do that sometimes — just take a run at him and flatten him.”

Lewis went running back to his older dog, where he quickly realized Bailey hadn’t been felled by Sophie.

“I worked as a medic back in college and have been involved in multiple CPRs and all kinds of things,” he said. “Bailey’s gums were white, his tongue was out, eyes were fixed and dilated, no respirations, and his bowels had evacuated.

“Every signal you could look at (indicated) this dog’s heart has stopped. He’s just done. He’s just gone.”

Bailey had lived with Lewis and his wife, Linda, since he was a puppy, and he’s one of several boxers they’ve had over the years. And as Lewis considered his next move, he very briefly wondered if he should even try to help his four-legged buddy.

“I shook him a little bit, and I thought for a moment,” he said. “We’ve had to put four boxers down because they never die in their sleep, and it’s horrible to go through that, so I thought, ‘Well, maybe I don’t do anything and it’s over, and the last thing you remember is he was running in the sun by the river.’”

But that thought didn’t last long. Lewis’ background as a first responder kicked in, and he began life-saving measures. ….

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